Title: Global best practices, national innovation systems, and tertiary education: a critique of the World Bank's Accelerating Catch-up (2009)

Authors: Michael F. Keating

Addresses: Department of Social Sciences, Richmond, the American International University in London, Queens Road, Richmond-upon-Thames, TW10 6JP, UK

Abstract: The World Bank's 2009 publication Accelerating Catch-up: Tertiary Education for Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa outlines tertiary education reforms designed to promote knowledge economies. In this document, the World Bank recognises that reforming the tertiary education sector in sub-Saharan Africa necessitates enhanced state functions in terms of governance, coordination and networking capacity, and seeks to reconcile this with its advocacy of neo-liberal global best practices for tertiary education through the national innovation systems (NIS) framework. In the NIS framework, competitive advantage is derived from national political economic distinctiveness. Yet, neo-liberal global best practices constitute a problematic one-size-fits-all development strategy that promotes institutional and organisational convergence in the tertiary sector. Accelerating Catch-up therefore provides a deeply contradictory model for tertiary sector reform.

Keywords: SSA; Sub-Saharan Africa; best practices; tertiary education; World Bank; Accelerating Catch-up; national innovation systems; NIS; neo-liberalism; regulatory states; governance; economic growth; educational reforms; enhanced functions; state functions; coordination; networking; neo-liberal practices; competitive advantage; political distinctiveness; economic distinctiveness; one-size-fits-all; development strategies; institutional convergence; organisational convergence; contradictory models; socio-economic divisions; political divisions; developed countries; Global North; developing countries; Global South; knowledge economies; public policy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPP.2012.048716

International Journal of Public Policy, 2012 Vol.8 No.4/5/6, pp.251 - 265

Published online: 31 Jul 2014 *

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